Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [12]
‘Looks to me like he’s a mighty good man,’ said Sarah. ‘He sure is praying all the time.’
‘You children is young,’ their mother said, ignoring Sarah and sitting down again at the table, ‘and you don’t know how lucky you is to have a father what worries about you and tries to see to it that you come up right.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roy, ‘we don’t know how lucky we is to have a father what don’t want you to go to movies, and don’t want you to play in the streets, and don’t want you to have no friends, and he don’t want this and he don’t want that, and he don’t want you to do nothing. We so lucky to have a father who just wants us to go to church and read the Bible and beller like a fool in front of the altar and stay home all nice and quiet, like a little mouse. Boy, we sure is lucky, all right. Don’t know what I done to be so lucky.’
She laughed. ‘You going to find out one day,’ she said, ‘you mark my words.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roy.
‘But it’ll be too late, then,’ she said. ‘It’ll be too late when you come to be … sorry.’ Her voice had changed. For a moment her eyes met John’s eyes, and John was frightened.. He felt that her words, after the strange fashion God sometimes chose to speak to men, were dictated by Heaven and were meant for him. He was fourteen—was it too lat? And thus uneasiness was reinforced by the impression, which at that moment he realized had been his all along, that his mother was not saying everything she meant. What, he wondered, did she say to Aunt Florence when they talked together? Or to his father? What were her thoughts? Her face would never tell. And yet, looking down at him in a moment that was like a secret, passing sign, her face did tell him. Her thoughts were bitter.
‘I don’t care,’ Roy said, rising. ‘When I have children I ain’t going to treat them like this.’ John watched his mother; she watched Roy. ‘I’m sure this ain’t no way to be. Ain’t got no right to have a houseful of children if you don’t know how to treat them.’
‘You mighty grown up this morning,’ his mother said. ‘You be careful.’
‘And tell me something else,’ Roy said, suddenly leaning over his mother, ‘tell me how come he don’t never let me talk to him like I talk to you? He’s my father, ain’t he? But he don’t never listen to me—no, I all the time got to listen to him.’
‘Your father,’ she said, watching him, ‘knows best. You listen to your father, I guarantee you you won’t end up in no jail.’
Roy sucked his teeth in fury. ‘I ain’t looking to go to no jail. You think that’s all that’s in the world is jails and churches? You ought to know better than that, Ma.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘there ain’t no safety except you walk humble before the Lord. You going to find it out, too, one day. You go on, hardhead. You going to come to grief.’
And suddenly Rot grinned. ‘But you be there, won’t you, Ma—when I’m in trouble?’
‘You don’t know,’ she said, trying not to smile, ‘how long the Lord’s going to let me stay with you.’
Roy turned and did a dance step. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know the Lord ain’t as hard as Daddy. Is he, boy?’ he demanded of John, and struck him lightly on the forehead.
‘Boy, let me eat my breakfast,’ John muttered—though his plate had long been empty, and he was pleased that Roy had turned to him.
‘That sure is a crazy boy,’ ventured Sarah, soberly.
‘Just listen,’ cried Roy, ‘to the little saint1 Daddy ain’t never going to have trouble with her—that one, she was born holy. I bet the first words she ever said was: “Thank you, Jesus,” Ain’t that so, Ma?’
‘You stop this foolishness,’ she said, laughing, ‘and go on about your work. Can’t nobody play the fool with you all morning.’
‘Oh, is you got work for me to do this morning? Well, I declare,’ said Roy, ‘what you got for me to do?’
‘I got the woodwork in the dining-room for you to do. And you going to do it, too, before you set foot out of this house.’
‘Now, why you want to talk like that, Ma? Is I said I wouldn’t do it? You know I’m a right good worker when I got a mind. After I do it, can I